Matt Asay says, “While games continue to dominate the apps that consumers buy, there are clear signs that the future of mobile may not be what they allow you to play, but what they enable you to buy. According to a new research report, mobile commerce is finally getting real. How real? This busy shopping season, as much as 31% of all online purchases will happen on mobile devices. That’s a big change from even a year ago, and portends a healthy future for mobile developers”. Why Booming Mobile Commerce Is Good For Developers ReadWrite  [...]

Helena A. S. Popkin says, “Facebook’s latest iteration of its privacy policy is both the shortest and clearest so far about what it means to do with your personal information: Squeeze it for all the money it’s worth. Your privacy settings won’t be changing, the social network explained Thursday in a blog post. But its rules for using your location and payment information (when that service is added) are getting an update to accommodate its expanding empire. To augment—if not distract from—this reminder that it owns its users, Facebook simplified its privacy settings with... [...]

Helena A. S. Popkin says, “The Internet exploded in empty rhetoric Monday over Barack Obama’s Congress-short, six years late endorsement of “net neutrality,” an issue that will likely continue to go nowhere fast despite the president’s full-throated tone. In a statement posted on the official White House website Monday, just two years before he leaves office, Obama said: I believe the [Federal Communications Commission] should create a new set of rules protecting net neutrality and ensuring that neither the cable company nor the phone company will be able to act as a... [...]

Adriana Lee says, “Android developers, you too can have break-out success in Google Play—and Google itself wants to show you the way. The creator of the mobile software and its related app store has put together a game plan to help app makers make it big using its resources. Perhaps anyone can write an app and push it into the store. But the company emphasizes that those are just the first steps. After all, it’s hard to stand out amid more than 1.3 million Google Play apps. According to the company’s blog, the tome is “a detailed playbook on the best practices and tools you... [...]

Selena Larson says, “Twitter struck a new partnership with the nonprofit Women, Action & the Media (WAM) that could be its most serious effort yet to deal with online harassment. To date, Twitter’s response to harassment on the microblogging network has been abysmal. It’s often criticized for not doing enough to protect users, especially women, who’ve been stalked or threatened via tweet. For instance, Twitter has long refused to accept abuse reports from anyone but the target of harassment, which is sort of strange given that the harassment typically takes place right... [...]

Owen Thomas says, “With one hand, Google cuts. And with the other, it connects. That’s the ongoing story of Google Cloud Platform, the company’s set of products and services for developers looking to host and run apps over Google’s sprawling Web infrastructure. On Tuesday, Google executive Joerg Heilig kicked off its second Google Cloud Platform Live event with more price cuts across a range of services from computing to storage. (Last month, Google cut prices on Google Compute Engine, a flagship cloud-computing service, by 10 percent.)”. Google Sticks To Its Cloud Knitting:... [...]

Owen Thomas says, “The nearly-forgotten sound of the newspaper landing with a thud on a doorstep is being replaced by the bright chime of a smartphone notification. Thanks to new apps, the news is once more being delivered. The latest to jump on this trend is Flipboard, which updated its app late Wednesday evening with several new features. Notable among them is the Daily Edition, a collection of links to news stories selected by Flipboard’s editorial staff”. Flipboard, Circa, And Yahoo Deliver The News ReadWrite  [...]

Lauren Orsini says, “So far, Reddit’s business model has been to provide the tools while users do the rest. This pattern continues with Redditmade, the company’s first foray into crowdfunding. “Redditmade gives you the flexibility to create almost anything you want, easily raise money, and support causes you care about,” wrote Kaela Worthen Gardner, marketing manager at Reddit, in the Redditmade official introductory post. “It’s also a great way for others to find awesome new products they’ll love and support other redditors while knowing their information and money will always... [...]

Selena Larson says, “Facebook hasn’t peaked yet, but that point may not be far off. While 1.35 billion people use Facebook each month, its growth continues to slow, as it reported in its third quarter earnings report on Tuesday. Facebook’s monthly active user count rose 13.5% year over year in the third quarter, compared to 14% in the second, 15% in the first quarter, and 16.3% in the fourth quarter of 2013. Its continued slow growth points to a problem, albeit an enviable one. So many people already use Facebook that it’s having increasinging difficulty attracting more of... [...]

James Temple says, “Wikimedia’s new executive director said the nonprofit is betting heavily on mobile as it strives to reach new audiences in developing regions and stay on top of shifting trends throughout the world. “The majority of our investments are now going into product and engineering, and within that the majority is starting to go into mobility,” said Lila Tretikov at Code/Mobile, in one of her first public appearances since taking the role in May. The shift is important for the organization behind Wikipedia, the fifth-most popular destination online, because citizens... [...]